and I'd add to that, the fact that he came into last season flying, despite both the lock-out and missing the limited practices & first few games of the team, with a new coach/system, speaks volumes to how well he prepared himself, on his own, in the offseason.
a lot of players struggled last year, showing signs of having poorly managed their extended time off… for a 23 year old kid to show up better than he's ever been, shows exactly what kind of maturity & professionalism PK ALREADY had, before ever even interacting with his new coach.
the narrative, heavily pushed by MT/MB, that they are responsible for his progression, is beyond laughable.
I'm amazed that some people actually buy it, despite all of the evidence to the contrary.
there is so much fail, so much conjecture, so much lack of sense, in the above post, i don't even know where to begin.
just because you keep repeating the same, baseless, stuff, doesn't make it any more true.
do you know anything about Subban's career progression before last February?
There is no issue with a coach benching a player to send a message… and there is definitely some power to holding your stars to a high standard, setting the tone for the rest of the team.
The problem with the Subban benching, vs the Markov example, is that the context was entirely different.
Markov, at the time of his benching, had been struggling (likely tied to the grind of a condensed schedule in his first year back from 2 consecutive major injuries), was playing poorly, and took a selfish penalty.
Subban was one of the best players on the ice during the flyers game, and one of a very select few on our team that was playing with the kind of compete level that MT usually preaches.
In that same game, other players made lazy, selfish mistakes, with no repercussion, including DD making a lazy play early in the game leading directly to a goal.
To on the one hand preach that your team play a "grinding" gritty style with high compete level, and then immediately punish one of the only players actually playing the way you want the team to play, because he crosses the emotional line and makes a mistake….
while on the other hand, do nothing (and even reward, with pp time) to players who are too lazy/disengaged to compete at the level you claim to demand….
that's the kind of crap that, fairly so, draws the attention of everyone.
The decision reaked of "putting him in his place" or "keeping his ego in check", especially since it came immediately after the team canada announcement.
Did not pass the sniff test, hence why MT has been so universally criticized… minus the few apologist who would rather stick to their guns then consider the situation unfolding in front of them.
in the end, the writing is on the wall. MT's been fired before for the very same crap he's pulling now, he'll end up losing the room (or at least some of the key figures in it), and then it's just a question of how long until MB is forced to act.
We can only hope it doesn't cost us a talented, driven, superstar athlete in the process.
